NYT Podcast 'The Daily' Spotlights Central Bucks In New 'School Board Wars' Series

WARRINGTON, PA — "The Daily," a New York Times podcast that runs every morning and covers national and international stories of all kinds, focused its Tuesday episode on school board meetings in the Central Bucks School District.

Called "The School Board Wars," it's a planned series centered on Central Bucks, with Wednesday's episode advertised as focusing more specifically on the dynamics of the school board election.

"Seemingly overnight, a new battleground has emerged in American politics: school boards," the episode description attests. "Suddenly, the question of who sits on a school board has become a question about which version of America will prevail."

The series focuses on Bucks County for a reason.

"Bucks is a really important county in national politics," said correspondent Campbell Robertson, around whose reporting the episode centers. He speaks about Bucks as a hotly contested election zone.

In conversation with host Michael Barbaro, Robertson attempts to answer the nationally relevant question, "How did it get like this?" through our county's lens.

The Central Bucks school board has had a particularly volatile time over the past year, not unlike other Bucks County boards. This summer, a supervisor was cited after hitting an anti-masking advocate on the head with a sign. Just last week, the school board made headlines again over a refusal to limit transphobic, antisemitic public comments.

"There are increasingly even debates about the way public comments work in the meetings," Robertson said of the free speech commentary. "In a way, the fight has become about the fight itself."

The episode began its coverage in summer 2020, examining school board meetings where some 70 parents would offer comments each meeting on reopening during the pandemic. Barbaro and Robertson then discussed subsequent parent statements on subjects including diversity and equity, vaccination, public health and freedom of speech. They also discussed lawsuits in the district.

"You've got these two camps, neither of which are new, suddenly fighting in this new space," Robertson said of the division in Central Bucks.

He struggles to parse what exactly made the school board meeting such a political hotbed, but points to private Facebook groups, anti-institution sentiment, and the investment in educational policy in Bucks County as some important factors.

"I think I understand enough to tell you that it's a complete mess," he told Barbaro.

Those interested can listen to the episode here: The School Board Wars, Part 1

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